WEBVTT

00:08.560 --> 00:15.920
Let's see

00:16.800 --> 00:20.960
So let's see why am I not

00:23.280 --> 00:29.840
okay can you guys see me when I'm speaking 
yes okay hi Emily, Tom Crawford, the geography of  

00:29.840 --> 00:36.400
virginia tech, one of our co-sponsors. um okay so hi 
everybody I'm Maria Elisa Christie. I'm the director  

00:36.400 --> 00:40.880
of women and gender in international development 
at the center for international research education  

00:40.880 --> 00:46.080
and development at Virginia Tech. So welcome to 
our virtual women and gender in international  

00:46.080 --> 00:52.160
development discussion series at Virginia Tech. 
We are very happy that you could all join us um  

00:52.880 --> 00:57.520
and thanks to our co-sponsors the Department of 
Geography and also Women and Gender Studies here at  

00:57.520 --> 01:03.920
Virginia Tech. So please note that our event will 
be recorded and available on our website later  

01:03.920 --> 01:08.960
so if you by staying on now you're consenting to 
being recorded and you can turn off your camera  

01:08.960 --> 01:15.360
if you don't want your image recorded. So that 
our the full calendar of our discussion series  

01:15.360 --> 01:20.400
can be seen on our website and uh Lumbini our 
graduate assistant for the program will put  

01:20.400 --> 01:26.240
that into the chat. So before introducing our 
speaker I do want to read our uh land and labor  

01:26.240 --> 01:31.440
acknowledgment statement at Virginia Tech. So 
Virginia Tech and invite you to reflect on it  

01:32.080 --> 01:38.000
uh Virginia Tech acknowledges that we live and 
work on the Tutelo / Monacan people's homeland and  

01:38.000 --> 01:43.600
we recognize their continued relationships with 
their lands and waterways. We further acknowledge  

01:43.600 --> 01:49.680
that legislation and practices like the Morrill 
act of 1862 enabled the commonwealth of Virginia  

01:49.680 --> 01:54.880
to finance and found Virginia Tech through the 
forced removal of native nations from their lands  

01:55.440 --> 02:00.240
both locally and in western territories. 
We understand that honoring native peoples  

02:00.240 --> 02:05.440
without explicit material commitment falls 
short of our institutional responsibilities  

02:06.240 --> 02:10.800
through sustained transparent and meaningful 
engagement with the Tutelo / Monacan peoples and  

02:10.800 --> 02:16.400
other native nations we commit to changing 
the trajectory of Virginia Tech's history by  

02:16.400 --> 02:23.600
increasing indigenous students, staff, and faculty 
recruitment and retention diversifying course  

02:23.600 --> 02:28.160
offerings and meeting the growing needs of all 
Virginia tribes and supporting their sovereignty.  

02:29.200 --> 02:35.360
We also must recognize that enslaved black 
people generated revenue and resources used  

02:35.360 --> 02:41.920
to establish Virginia Tech and were prohibited 
from attending until 1953. Through InclusiveVT  

02:41.920 --> 02:48.000
the institutional and individual commitment to Ut 
Prosim that I may serve in the spirit of community  

02:48.000 --> 02:54.080
diversity and excellence we commit to advancing 
a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community.  

02:55.120 --> 03:00.960
Okay some brief uh housekeeping notes now this 
the discussion will last approximately 45 minutes, our  

03:00.960 --> 03:07.920
speaker's presentation will be about half an hour 
followed by about 15 minutes of discussion in q&a  

03:08.480 --> 03:14.960
and I will formally close at um at the end of  
an hour at 2:30 but we'll have a few minutes to stay  

03:14.960 --> 03:20.320
if somebody wants to stay on after that just 
a little bit. So all dialing participants will be  

03:20.320 --> 03:26.720
muted to enable the speaker to present without 
interruption. You're welcome to post questions  

03:26.720 --> 03:30.960
you'd like to ask in the chatbox and you can 
post them at any time and I'll read them to our  

03:30.960 --> 03:35.280
speaker at the end of the presentation if we have 
time and there's more questions after those in the  

03:35.280 --> 03:39.680
chat people can raise their hand and the webinar 
controls and we'll ask you to unmute yourself and  

03:39.680 --> 03:43.600
you can ask the speaker the question or make your 
comments directly toward the end of the session.  

03:44.320 --> 03:49.680
So in order for our discussion to be as rich as it 
can be we need everyone to be respectful and treat  

03:49.680 --> 03:55.360
all participants with kindness and consideration 
and without discriminatory behavior so again  

03:55.360 --> 03:59.760
the webinar is being recorded and you will have 
access to it via our website a couple weeks after  

03:59.760 --> 04:06.480
the after the end of this and please answer
the survey that we'll share at the end and we will  

04:06.480 --> 04:10.400
invite your feedback. Okay now what you've really 
been waiting for now to introduce our speaker  

04:11.520 --> 04:19.120
we have a very special women's month speaker with 
us today dr farhana sultana and i'm always happy  

04:19.120 --> 04:25.280
to host a fellow geographer at our discussion 
series I realize that for many she needs no  

04:25.280 --> 04:32.320
introduction with over 70 publications and last I 
checked on google scholar almost 5000 citations  

04:33.840 --> 04:37.200
take that those of you who are 
trying to get things published.  

04:38.240 --> 04:46.640
Oh my gosh okay um and we did send out the 
article um uh on critical climate justice that she  

04:46.640 --> 04:52.240
she published with the royal geographical society 
uh to those of you registered and it will also be  

04:52.240 --> 04:56.720
in the chat and uh you can also go to her 
website and see all the other things that  

04:56.720 --> 05:01.760
she's written and makes available to people 
so all right but I am still going to give some  

05:01.760 --> 05:05.760
detail even though she doesn't need introduction 
because we have a broad array of participants  

05:06.560 --> 05:14.880
we had 138 registered as of half an hour ago from 
21 countries from institutions as different as  

05:14.880 --> 05:18.480
the Scottish government, the Norwegian 
institute of international affairs,  

05:19.520 --> 05:26.000
the Ohio environmental council, and World vision 
international; as well as academic institutions  

05:26.000 --> 05:33.600
from the UK, the US, Canada, India and Australia and 
maybe more since the last time I looked at that  

05:33.600 --> 05:38.640
and we also have faculty, staff, and students from 
very different departments in our own university  

05:38.640 --> 05:43.760
Virginia Tech. So we have a very diverse crowd so 
okay so a little more about our speaker Dr. Sultana  

05:43.760 --> 05:48.880
is an associate professor in the department of 
geography and the environment at the Maxwell  

05:48.880 --> 05:53.920
school of citizenship and public affairs 
of Syracuse University where she's also the  

05:53.920 --> 05:59.760
research director for environmental collaboration 
and conflicts at the program for advancement  

06:00.320 --> 06:06.480
of research on conflicts and collaboration. 
She is also an internationally recognized  

06:06.480 --> 06:13.120
interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, 
water governance, post-colonial development, social  

06:13.120 --> 06:20.000
and environmental justice, climate change, and 
feminism. Her research and scholar activism draw  

06:20.000 --> 06:25.200
from her experiences of having lived and worked 
on three continents as well as her backgrounds  

06:25.200 --> 06:31.520
in the natural sciences, social sciences, and her 
policy experience prior to joining Syracuse. She  

06:31.520 --> 06:35.920
taught at king's college london and worked 
at the united nations development program  

06:36.720 --> 06:41.120
she graduated Cum laude from Princeton 
University in geosciences and environmental  

06:42.080 --> 06:46.400
studies and obtained her master's and Ph.D. in 
geography from the University of Minnesota  

06:47.040 --> 06:52.320
where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow. She was awarded the Glenda  

06:52.320 --> 06:57.280
laws award from the American Association of 
geographers for outstanding contributions  

06:57.280 --> 07:03.360
to geographical research on social issues 
in 2019. So the title of her talk today is  

07:03.360 --> 07:10.000
climate justice, gender, and challenges in a 
fractured world. Please welcome Dr. Farhana Sultana!

07:12.320 --> 07:17.760
Thank you so much Maria Elisa for such a wonderful 
and generous introduction uh thank you, everyone  

07:17.760 --> 07:23.360
for joining us from wherever you may be around 
the world um and I'm really grateful to be here  

07:23.360 --> 07:27.920
and especially to all the colleagues at Virginia 
Tech University for making this possible and for  

07:27.920 --> 07:33.680
inviting me to speak with you so today I want to 
speak to you about feminist climate justice what  

07:33.680 --> 07:39.520
it means and why I think it's important. So let me 
just go ahead and share some slides I just have  

07:39.520 --> 07:46.720
a few slides to show to go with my talk and I'm 
happy to elaborate further and the paper that this  

07:46.720 --> 07:53.120
talk is derived from came out a few months ago and 
I believe um it was just shared in the chatbox  

07:53.120 --> 07:57.840
you can also download a pdf of it from my website 
which is literally but my name dot com farhana  

07:57.840 --> 08:03.120
sultana.com so the reason why I wanted to 
talk about this topic was because so much  

08:03.120 --> 08:07.440
the conversation has arisen in recent years 
around climate change, climate breakdown  

08:07.440 --> 08:13.040
there's a lot of concern around it um as it 
should be and so what we're going to do today  

08:13.040 --> 08:18.000
is try to understand certain specific aspects 
of it and I'll talk a little quickly because I'm  

08:18.000 --> 08:23.200
covering a lot of ground but I'm happy to discuss 
further so when we think about climate change one  

08:23.200 --> 08:27.200
way to think about it is to at least understand 
the basics I'm not going to assume everyone has  

08:27.200 --> 08:33.440
the same context so just a very brief overview. 
So global events of climate-related disasters  

08:33.440 --> 08:38.480
have become more profound and as a result 
there's been more attention to climate justice  

08:38.480 --> 08:42.480
and because the injustices from climate 
breakdown have been overlapping with  

08:42.480 --> 08:47.120
for instance, the COVID 19 pandemic we are 
beginning to see where the fault lines of  

08:47.120 --> 08:53.360
society is or where the economic and political 
conditions of um suffering are being created  

08:53.360 --> 08:59.360
at different scales but at different sites so what 
a climate justice framework does is it helps us  

08:59.360 --> 09:04.480
think through and address these inequities that 
have become very visible in the last couple of  

09:04.480 --> 09:09.440
years of the pandemic but even longer over 
decades over several places around the world  

09:09.440 --> 09:15.200
so what climate justice does is it demonstrates 
how climate change is an ethical and justice issue  

09:15.200 --> 09:20.880
not just a science or techno managerial issue and 
given that the intergovernmental panel on climate  

09:20.880 --> 09:26.400
change or the IPCC assessments even the one 
that was released or just a couple of weeks ago  

09:26.400 --> 09:32.480
have warned us of severe exacerbating 
vulnerabilities of with global uh greenhouse gas  

09:32.480 --> 09:37.920
emissions rising global temperatures we still know 
that action has been relatively slow even though  

09:37.920 --> 09:43.840
these reports keep coming out um and as a result 
we're seeing greater and greater need for more  

09:43.840 --> 09:50.320
active engagement. So what climate justice does 
is it starts to foster those kinds of engagements  

09:50.320 --> 09:55.040
and conversations because we're starting to look 
at what are the social impacts of climate change?  

09:55.040 --> 10:00.160
what are his political outfalls and economic 
injustices that come in its wake? We know that  

10:00.160 --> 10:06.000
climate change is a threat multiplier so climate 
justice fundamentally is about paying attention to  

10:06.000 --> 10:11.680
and working to address those threat multipliers 
to understand how different people are impacted  

10:11.680 --> 10:18.640
differentially, unevenly, and disproportionately 
and how they result in injustices can be redressed  

10:18.640 --> 10:24.720
in fair and equitable ways so that we can 
dismantle or confront the systems that create the  

10:24.720 --> 10:30.800
marginalizations and exploitations and oppressions. 
So as a result we're really talking about climate  

10:30.800 --> 10:36.960
change is a political issue so climate justice 
approach asks us to really question our political  

10:36.960 --> 10:43.120
commitments. It's an intentional process to analyze 
who's been left out of conversations who have been  

10:43.120 --> 10:47.920
marginalized over what time and space what 
are the different for instance outcomes of  

10:48.640 --> 10:54.640
adaptation or mitigation interventions being 
taken in climate's name and seeing what kind of  

10:55.440 --> 11:01.520
exacerbations of vulnerability or marginalizations 
are created through those processes themselves so  

11:01.520 --> 11:08.000
what we do with the climate justice approach is 
we start to investigate who benefits, who loses out  

11:08.000 --> 11:12.960
in what ways where and why and as a result 
we can think about climate justice to be  

11:12.960 --> 11:18.960
explanatory tool. So it's an intentional process 
but it's also an explanatory tool at our disposal  

11:18.960 --> 11:24.240
to look at how these different processes 
of injustices are co-created and maintained.  

11:25.200 --> 11:27.840
We know that there have been 
historical and geographical differences  

11:28.560 --> 11:34.080
that in terms of production of climate change and 
in terms of the impacts that are being played out.  

11:34.080 --> 11:40.160
So climate justice helps us have those 
conversations around why did this come to be  

11:40.160 --> 11:46.960
we start to have conversations around histories of 
colonialism, capitalism, globalization, extractivism  

11:46.960 --> 11:52.800
all of these processes are imbricated in 
the production of uneven climate injustices  

11:52.800 --> 11:57.920
and critiques of these interlocking systems 
of oppression are increasingly being  

11:57.920 --> 12:03.520
ushered into mainstream debates and climate 
justice because to have justice it becomes  

12:03.520 --> 12:10.240
imperative first to identify the injustices that 
exist and then address underlying causes of them  

12:10.240 --> 12:16.960
instead of just applying band-aid solutions. 
So climate justice is essentially about praxis  

12:16.960 --> 12:22.160
and praxis means theoretically informed practice 
with reflection so there are continual feedback  

12:22.160 --> 12:27.920
and integrations and in broad terms, we're seeing 
that climate justice movements around the world  

12:27.920 --> 12:34.240
are helping us think through the practice of 
demanding systemic change to redress structural  

12:34.240 --> 12:39.440
inequities and destabilize power systems 
that produce those injustices I was just  

12:39.440 --> 12:45.840
alluding to equity considerations mean 
reducing harms and removing sources of harm  

12:45.840 --> 12:51.360
so commitment or underlying commitment of climate 
justice is largely about political action and  

12:51.360 --> 12:56.640
solidarity movements, so critical approaches 
to climate justice look at issues such as  

12:56.640 --> 13:03.600
responsibility, exposure, vulnerability, and ethics 
because climate justice is accountability, it is  

13:03.600 --> 13:09.280
about accountability and obligations and human 
rights. So when we think about the global political  

13:09.280 --> 13:15.760
economy or the systems that produce and reinforce 
temporal and spatial harms we start to have these  

13:15.760 --> 13:21.200
conversations about which communities are being 
impacted, which movements have trying to address  

13:21.200 --> 13:26.480
these issues and how can we get involved with 
different actors and different groups at different  

13:26.480 --> 13:33.200
scales and at different locations. So climate 
justice as praxis comes from root place-based  

13:33.200 --> 13:40.000
rooted actions but it is also informed by various 
academic theories such as feminism, critical race  

13:40.000 --> 13:45.920
theory, anti-capitalist theory, post-colonial 
declinal and anti-colonial scholarship because  

13:45.920 --> 13:50.960
we start to see what these different theoretical 
interventions help us in theorizing and thinking  

13:50.960 --> 13:58.320
about movements, practical action and political 
interventions. So while climate justice has had  

13:58.320 --> 14:04.560
a lot of uptake in academia in recent years there 
have been actually praxis or solidarity movements  

14:04.560 --> 14:12.560
for a long time, it was actually at the 2002 which 
is 20 years ago at the 2002 conference of parties  

14:12.560 --> 14:18.960
or the COP on climate change where climate justice 
first entered the scene. It involved grassroots  

14:18.960 --> 14:26.320
initiatives and activist alliances were working in 
collaboration across place-based mobilizations and  

14:26.320 --> 14:32.000
they were talking about climate justice at a large 
international climate negotiation and conference.  

14:32.560 --> 14:36.880
So we see that climate justice has largely 
been practiced and that we're seeing more  

14:36.880 --> 14:42.080
and more young people get involved but at 
the same time we know that it's derived from  

14:42.080 --> 14:47.520
a lot of place-based activities from labor unions, 
farmer movements um indigenous movements and so  

14:47.520 --> 14:52.560
on and increasingly we're seeing the youth 
movement and climate justice in recent years  

14:52.560 --> 14:57.600
so what does it mean to understand climate 
justice in this way to think about the fact  

14:57.600 --> 15:03.040
there's an overarching commonality even if 
different movements are doing different things.  

15:03.040 --> 15:08.160
It's because we're they're all trying to expose 
the root causes of climate change where they are  

15:08.160 --> 15:13.040
but then also across places and times and they're 
also talking about how do we dismantle these  

15:13.040 --> 15:19.680
systemic and structural concerns and the systems 
that produce and reproduce these harms so some of  

15:19.680 --> 15:26.160
these include dismantling fossil fuel dependency, 
de-fetishizing endless growth on a finite planet, 

15:26.160 --> 15:32.320
challenging non-participatory democracy, resisting 
extractive exploitation of natural resources, and  

15:32.320 --> 15:39.680
peoples and indigenous ideas among other things. So 
when we think about climate justice as basically  

15:39.680 --> 15:46.160
undergirded by concerns around equity fairness 
and reparations we start to pay closer attention  

15:46.160 --> 15:52.400
to these complexities across place space 
and scale and this necessitates a much more  

15:53.280 --> 16:00.160
nuanced but much more comprehensive approach to 
our understanding and it also recognizes that it's  

16:00.160 --> 16:06.400
we need to start asking questions around power and 
power structures and political disparities and how  

16:06.400 --> 16:12.880
these are embedded within multiscaler issues such 
as broader political economy of trade relations,  

16:12.880 --> 16:19.840
international development, neoliberal globalization, 
and so on because related socioecological  

16:20.720 --> 16:26.640
harm or vulnerability and differential outcomes 
are linked to these wider issues. So we're seeing  

16:26.640 --> 16:31.360
that both from academia and outside of academia 
these kinds of conversations are happening  

16:31.360 --> 16:37.040
and you're seeing a lot of play space but also 
cross-scalar solidarities that are being enacted.  

16:37.040 --> 16:42.720
So when we talk about climate and justices 
historically and these different movements that  

16:42.720 --> 16:48.000
have often been violently erased or suppressed 
and oppressed by their own states by different  

16:48.000 --> 16:52.720
governments, different corporations we see that 
there are large parts of the global south or  

16:52.720 --> 16:58.240
the so-called post-colonial world that has been 
dealing with climate impacts and has been trying  

16:58.240 --> 17:04.400
to resist the different oppressions for quite some 
time. So we see outcomes of such things as tropical  

17:04.400 --> 17:10.960
cyclones, uh floods, sea-level rise, heat waves, 
wildfires, land erosion, and so on but we're seeing  

17:10.960 --> 17:15.920
them increasingly being experienced across the 
what is called the global north or the advanced  

17:15.920 --> 17:22.480
industrialized world and we're seeing increasing 
numbers of compounded harms. So numbers of deaths  

17:22.480 --> 17:28.160
losses displacements and high recovery costs 
but then also communities that are increasingly  

17:28.160 --> 17:34.240
vulnerabilized because it's a compounding effect 
in terms of who pays the highest price longer  

17:34.240 --> 17:39.360
and as a result, scholars have been using terms 
such as climate apartheid that some parts of  

17:39.360 --> 17:45.200
the world have been experiencing climate injustice 
for longer but they have not been heard or heeded  

17:45.200 --> 17:51.600
and as a result, we can start to talk about how 
the advanced industrialized world owes the uh  

17:51.600 --> 17:58.000
historically exploited and historically made to 
be impoverished countries a climate debt. A climate  

17:58.000 --> 18:04.480
debt is one that involves understanding and 
recognizing the slow violence of climate change  

18:04.480 --> 18:10.160
to racialized and impoverished communities across 
the world and looking at how racial capitalism and  

18:10.160 --> 18:16.640
colonialism along with neoliberal globalization 
are compounding climate injustices through such  

18:16.640 --> 18:24.560
things as a development ideology, trade warfare 
and so on so because past injustices make people  

18:24.560 --> 18:30.080
more vulnerable. We need to therefore think about 
that historical accountability the unequal  

18:30.080 --> 18:36.160
ecological exchange, climate deaths and so on, and 
thinking about climate reparations. So this brings  

18:36.160 --> 18:42.240
me to the main point of the paper that you have 
access to about how I theorize what a feminist  

18:42.240 --> 18:47.920
climate justice or critical climate justice is and 
this is because what's become really apparent over  

18:47.920 --> 18:53.520
the last couple of decades is that climate justice 
movements benefit from feminist theory whether it  

18:53.520 --> 19:00.720
carries the banner of feminism or not because when 
we think about um the different forms of ways that  

19:01.840 --> 19:07.360
justice has been theorized or understood 
we really start to see the importance of  

19:07.360 --> 19:13.760
the different forms of theoretical formations 
that come into play in understanding both theories  

19:13.760 --> 19:19.840
of justice whether that's recognition justice, 
distributive justice, reparative justice or so on  

19:19.840 --> 19:26.240
but critical feminist analysis helps us understand 
what the overlooked or buried concerns are because  

19:26.240 --> 19:31.120
where they're therefore able to expose various 
inequities and harms that may not be relevant  

19:31.120 --> 19:36.800
uh to a lot of different people in power or may 
not seem apparent to those who are still trying  

19:36.800 --> 19:42.320
to understand what's going on because feminist 
scholarship often tends to also incorporate  

19:42.320 --> 19:48.800
insights from anti-racist anti-colonial and the
colonial scholarship to advance justice-oriented  

19:48.800 --> 19:55.840
praxis we can benefit from incorporating that from 
much more capacious climate justice movements and  

19:55.840 --> 20:02.800
indeed it was actually at the COP in 2007 so that 
was 15 years ago where we first heard the term "no  

20:02.800 --> 20:09.120
climate justice without gender justice" and it was 
a rallying cry from activists and social movements  

20:09.120 --> 20:12.960
and we've seen that also women have been 
at the forefront of the climate justice  

20:12.960 --> 20:17.920
movements across the world and they have raised 
awareness of the importance of paying attention  

20:17.920 --> 20:23.840
to the differential intersectional gendered 
burdens and harms around the world and at the same  

20:23.840 --> 20:29.840
time there's also increasing conversations about 
what are the ways we can start to think about  

20:29.840 --> 20:35.120
injustice not just in a place but intersectional 
within that place within that society  

20:36.240 --> 20:42.000
so as a result we're um increasing scholarship 
but then also practice-based movements  

20:42.000 --> 20:46.720
have looked at intersectional gendered 
marginalizations, inequities, burdens, and  

20:46.720 --> 20:52.560
vulnerability from various types of climate 
breakdown. Whether it's agrarian loss, floods,  

20:53.280 --> 20:59.680
erosions, displacement and so on because we know 
that climate is uneven unequal and long-lasting  

20:59.680 --> 21:05.520
depending on who you are where you live and what 
you have. What critical or transnational feminism  

21:05.520 --> 21:12.560
a feminist scholarship does it helps us identify 
the often invisibilized contours of suffering and  

21:12.560 --> 21:19.200
those interlocking oppressions that exist in that 
society and then how it then links up to wider  

21:19.200 --> 21:24.320
skills to wider issues of inequities that i was 
just talking to and then how we can talk about the  

21:24.320 --> 21:30.000
different types of justice and where that justice 
can be derived from what kind of allocations of  

21:30.000 --> 21:35.760
resources and attention need to be given and 
then how can we center different teachings  

21:35.760 --> 21:42.240
from feminism to formulate better policies and 
projects that help improve life for everyone  

21:42.240 --> 21:48.800
so what we know as feminist scholars is that we 
we look at iterative and multiple knock-on effects  

21:48.800 --> 21:53.520
from the socioecological changes 
to gender relations in any con  

21:53.520 --> 21:59.360
any context by looking at for instance what 
are the ways that intersectionality as a  

21:59.360 --> 22:06.000
concept helps us understand communities as 
not homogeneous, how do we investigate and address  

22:06.000 --> 22:13.120
context contextual axis of oppression whether it's 
by race, class, indigeneity, migrant status and so on.  

22:13.760 --> 22:19.200
So for instance climate-fueled water scarcity 
means more women and girls are spending more  

22:19.200 --> 22:25.760
time and labor and fetching water around the 
world that in itself is an issue that is um  

22:25.760 --> 22:30.560
something a lot of communities and organizations 
and nation-states are trying to intervene in how  

22:30.560 --> 22:35.520
do we deal with the water crisis because climate 
change is effectively about water right too much  

22:35.520 --> 22:40.880
too little wrong time wrong place. So someone like 
me who's been a water scholar for about 25 years  

22:40.880 --> 22:45.600
um and also been as climate scholar for me 
this is very intuitive it's always connected  

22:45.600 --> 22:50.320
but it isn't so for everyone so when we think 
about a feminist climate justice scholarship  

22:51.200 --> 22:58.160
we start to understand how patriarchy compounds 
these forms of intersectional harms and burdens  

22:58.160 --> 23:04.320
and sufferings and life opportunities in terms 
of schooling, education, leisure, and well-being  

23:04.320 --> 23:09.600
but then we also know to not essentialize 
women and men into binary categories but  

23:09.600 --> 23:15.280
look at the different forms of exploitation 
and harms but at the same time look at how  

23:15.840 --> 23:22.080
different theories of gender help us look at 
how risks responsibilities and rights exist  

23:22.080 --> 23:28.800
in that community in terms of understanding the 
different ways people are minoritized and excluded  

23:28.800 --> 23:35.280
or silenced so feminist insights into critical 
climate justice can foster inclusive planning  

23:35.280 --> 23:40.880
and action beyond techno managerialistic 
utopias that never really deliver.  

23:40.880 --> 23:47.920
It can also help us strengthen women's movements 
for strategic activism, advocacy, capacity building,  

23:48.640 --> 23:53.120
allocation of resources and network access. 
So these are both place-based but they're  

23:53.120 --> 23:58.800
also beyond places they're linked places and 
scales and groups and group people to address  

23:58.800 --> 24:02.880
things that are happening on the ground locally 
but also things that are happening globally.  

24:03.520 --> 24:09.360
What feminist climate justice does is it documents 
women's lived experiences and elevates different  

24:09.360 --> 24:14.800
voices and as a result, we start to have a much 
more complex and nuanced understanding of what  

24:14.800 --> 24:20.800
climate justice is beyond just what people think 
climate justice is because we're able to therefore  

24:20.800 --> 24:27.520
understand people's abilities to cope, to adapt, 
to renew, to flourish, or what are the obstacles to  

24:27.520 --> 24:35.920
that happening in different places so as a result 
feminist analysis and praxis continue a feminist  

24:35.920 --> 24:42.320
tradition of inquiry into inequities 
and injustices and this, therefore, helps us  

24:42.320 --> 24:48.560
better theorize climate justice but it also helps 
us better figure out different intervention points  

24:48.560 --> 24:54.480
because feminism promotes keener attention to 
context by underscoring connections between people  

24:54.480 --> 24:59.520
and by elevating awareness of these links once 
we start to see the similarities and differences  

24:59.520 --> 25:05.600
between different groups of people we can address 
shortcomings systematically and frame policies in  

25:05.600 --> 25:11.840
more equitable ways and because the goal is to not 
just create cookie cutter solutions but to tailor  

25:11.840 --> 25:16.960
make the ones that make most sense to each context 
but at the same time learn from other contexts  

25:16.960 --> 25:22.640
so there again is that praxis that loopback 
that feedback and that loop that is ever-present  

25:22.640 --> 25:28.080
but at the same time having said all this I also 
recognize that feminism is not a magic bullet if  

25:28.080 --> 25:33.360
it was we'd be deploying it everywhere right there 
are a lot of different issues that do require  

25:33.360 --> 25:39.680
technical, scientific or financial investment then 
we have to deal with those on their own terms but  

25:39.680 --> 25:45.440
what critical feminist inquiry does is it helps 
us think about what are the budgetary allocations  

25:45.440 --> 25:50.400
who's making the decisions who's at the table or 
rather what is the table what are the terms of the  

25:50.400 --> 25:56.240
debate rather than just having representation 
at the debate right. So we start to think about  

25:56.240 --> 26:04.240
public policy uh in much more capacious ways and 
so finally what feminism does is that it helps  

26:04.240 --> 26:11.040
us provide um better ways to think about road maps 
or recovery road maps or analysis and advocacy and  

26:11.920 --> 26:17.040
action to overcome the biggest challenges 
of our time that climate breakdown is  

26:18.640 --> 26:22.400
bringing about around the world but 
at the same time it helps us also  

26:23.120 --> 26:30.080
imagine or create and promote much more 
equitable and fair and well-being centered  

26:30.800 --> 26:36.960
solutions going forward. So when we think 
about moving forward what does that mean so  

26:36.960 --> 26:41.440
many different approaches have been kind of put 
forth I'll just touch up on some of them. So for  

26:41.440 --> 26:46.480
instance a lot of feminist scholars and related uh 
aegis and scholars have talked about moving from  

26:46.480 --> 26:53.600
extractive-based economy to a regenerative economy. 
These include reciprocity redistribution of power  

26:53.600 --> 27:01.520
and self-determination reparations care and care 
networks divestment solidarity across differences  

27:01.520 --> 27:06.560
recognizing differentiated responsibilities 
and cosmologies and not universalism  

27:07.280 --> 27:13.680
also transformation of public institutions for 
deep democracy public finance and reformulation  

27:13.680 --> 27:18.560
of international institutions and guidelines. So 
it's a range of different ways to think about  

27:18.560 --> 27:24.240
how the world works, so for instance there have 
been increased rhetoric of build back better in a  

27:24.240 --> 27:30.560
post-pandemic era of climate change both in the US
and elsewhere so what a feminist climate justice  

27:31.120 --> 27:37.680
epistemology does is it makes us ask questions 
such as what does that mean, what does build back  

27:37.680 --> 27:43.120
better entail, who is deciding this what will be 
improved, where will this take place, who will it  

27:43.120 --> 27:49.840
benefit, why, what are its externalities, and how 
do we internalize those externalities? So when we  

27:49.840 --> 27:56.800
think about post-pandemic recovery we can start to 
ask questions like it may not be gender sensitive  

27:56.800 --> 28:02.720
unless it is made to be so or race sensitive uh 
response unless it is made to be so so we can  

28:02.720 --> 28:08.800
look at how do we address rapidly compounding 
injustices through a much more gender-centric  

28:08.800 --> 28:16.240
or gender-just planning for post-pandemic recovery 
so that climate justice offers us pathways forward  

28:16.240 --> 28:22.880
that are both just and sustainable but are 
also equitable and fair. So many climate justice  

28:22.880 --> 28:28.880
activists and scholars have called for moving 
away from fossil fuel-based recovery uh not just  

28:28.880 --> 28:34.480
to slow down climate breakdown but for better 
fiscal recovery that includes climate financing  

28:34.480 --> 28:40.720
that is gender accountable. uh some recent examples 
put forth by activists um are the feminist green  

28:40.720 --> 28:46.960
new deal in the USA and the feminist fossil free 
future in the Asia-Pacific. There are plenty more  

28:46.960 --> 28:53.760
so what these endeavors do is basically require 
multi-scalar gender disaggregated data collection,  

28:53.760 --> 29:00.400
gender monitoring, accountability, adequate capacity 
building, and budgetary resource allocations for  

29:00.400 --> 29:06.240
both intersectional analysis and responsiveness; 
and then figuring out what the redresses that are  

29:06.240 --> 29:13.280
necessary, who needs to be involved in this. So when 
we raise awareness about these issues demonstrate  

29:13.280 --> 29:18.880
the interconnections across places to show that 
they're not only isolated we can start to see how  

29:18.880 --> 29:25.120
domestic solutions or national policy or local 
policy are connected to wider issues and we can  

29:25.120 --> 29:31.760
start to think about wider impacts and much more 
work in a much more concerted way with different  

29:31.760 --> 29:37.440
groups across places. Therefore reframing 
climate debates with insights from various  

29:37.440 --> 29:44.080
feminist insights and solidarity practices helps 
us to not only unearth issues but then redress  

29:44.080 --> 29:50.800
root causes instead of just seeking out very 
quick fixes or techno managerialistic solutions.  

29:50.800 --> 29:56.480
It also helps us think about how do we confront 
patriarchy in communities but also in institutions  

29:56.480 --> 30:02.720
in policy making and budgetary budget making. um 
it recognizes the importance of intersectional  

30:03.680 --> 30:10.480
gender analysis, the importance of disaggregated 
data collection about ethics and research design,  

30:10.480 --> 30:16.000
about collaborative planning and critical 
reflexivity. So again various insights from  

30:16.000 --> 30:23.040
feminist methodologies and epistemologies 
come into the foray. So let me just conclude  

30:23.040 --> 30:26.880
given the wide-ranging nature of this 
talk that I went through fairly quickly  

30:27.680 --> 30:32.640
because I just want to highlight some key messages 
and I want to then open it up for conversation  

30:32.640 --> 30:36.880
because the talk was originally that was asked 
from me was supposed to be 20 minutes but I said  

30:36.880 --> 30:41.200
can we go a little bit longer just so I can say 
a little bit more then we have more to talk about  

30:41.200 --> 30:45.680
but I do want to wrap up with a few things so 
we know that climate justice has become this  

30:45.680 --> 30:51.440
rallying cry across the globe and climate justice 
is ultimately about obligations and ethical  

30:51.440 --> 30:57.280
relations with people and ecosystems that we are 
materially and politically connected to whether we  

30:57.280 --> 31:01.840
understand that or not. The important thing is 
to recognize this and then do something about  

31:01.840 --> 31:07.360
it because climate change is basically a moral 
problem and a justice concern. It is not just an  

31:07.360 --> 31:13.760
economic or scientific one, it is not just about 
finance and technology but a shift in mindsets  

31:13.760 --> 31:21.760
in terms of framing, in terms of conversations, in 
terms of action. So climate justice therefore is as  

31:21.760 --> 31:26.560
much about development and democracy and 
citizenship as well as about international  

31:26.560 --> 31:34.640
financing, trade rules, uh different forms of 
institutional arrangements and so on. So when  

31:34.640 --> 31:39.840
we think about what does an attention to feminist 
climate justice do, it it really encourages policy  

31:39.840 --> 31:45.680
makers and citizens to approach climate change 
in more comprehensive ways but it also moves the  

31:45.680 --> 31:51.840
conversation around metaphorical understandings 
of climate justice to be much more about critical  

31:51.840 --> 31:57.040
climate justice and understanding the feminist 
insights that have been incorporated into it.  

31:57.040 --> 32:03.200
It calls for an accountability to intersectional 
analysis so that lived experiences and wisdom  

32:03.200 --> 32:09.040
of differently situated subjects are heeded and 
appropriated and inclusive policies and programs  

32:09.040 --> 32:14.800
are planned. So for instance paying attention to 
power relations that exist in any context becomes  

32:14.800 --> 32:20.800
important in fine-tuning and addressing inequities, 
marginalization, and vulnerabilities where they're  

32:20.800 --> 32:26.560
being created but then also reconfiguring what 
are the different ways we can think about these  

32:26.560 --> 32:32.880
issues and how are they tied to wider issues 
related to for instance housing justice or uh  

32:32.880 --> 32:40.320
binary uh bilateral trade uh regulations so why it 
widens the conversation is what I'm trying to say.  

32:40.320 --> 32:46.480
So advancing a critical feminist climate justice 
means making more meaningful and inclusive uh  

32:46.480 --> 32:52.560
strategies it's about recognizing and reducing the 
harms by gender, race, class and degenerating and  

32:52.560 --> 32:59.680
so on that occur within and across communities. 
It also means addressing reducing the things  

32:59.680 --> 33:05.440
that create those harms so again going back to 
greenhouse gas emissions, going back to different  

33:05.440 --> 33:12.320
forms of production, consumption, and disposal and 
systemic waste it's about sharing the burdens of  

33:12.320 --> 33:19.440
change and not further compounding sufferings. So 
climate justice research and praxis necessitate  

33:19.440 --> 33:26.560
deploying those forms of feminist insights to 
be more comprehensively accountable to various  

33:26.560 --> 33:32.880
systemic injustices that overlap and compound. So 
unless we understand that overlapping compounding  

33:33.520 --> 33:40.720
we feel helpless in moving forward so what I try 
to do is encourage people to how do we think about  

33:40.720 --> 33:46.160
de-centering powerful voices so we can re-center 
voices that have historically been excluded or  

33:46.160 --> 33:51.840
silenced, how do we learn from lived experiences 
from marginalized groups and communities  

33:52.400 --> 33:56.720
when we talk about climate change impacts 
whether local or global what are the ways  

33:56.720 --> 34:03.040
we can think about intersectional rights and risks 
and responsibilities, how do we get away from   

34:03.040 --> 34:08.560
cookie cutter approaches or one size fits all 
and so therefore we see that decision makers  

34:08.560 --> 34:14.960
and powerful actors when they start to heed these 
kinds of attention to paying attention to uh  

34:14.960 --> 34:21.200
gender and other axes of differentiation we can 
start to avoid those reductionist solutions but  

34:21.200 --> 34:28.240
rather pursue those that are more just and 
equitable. Ultimately what I want to do is help  

34:28.240 --> 34:33.760
people think about how do we revolutionize the way 
we think about climate change. So think about more  

34:33.760 --> 34:38.720
in terms of feminist or critical climate justice 
instead we need to think about systems change that  

34:38.720 --> 34:44.880
are needed for this critical feminist climate 
justice to confront capitalist extractivism  

34:44.880 --> 34:50.880
and climate colonialism. So we need to therefore 
center collaborations that are meaningful, that  

34:50.880 --> 34:56.480
are impactful because in the end there is no quick 
and easy way out of this mess that we are in right  

34:56.480 --> 35:02.240
there is no one solution there is no one climate 
movement that is going to help everything. This is  

35:02.240 --> 35:09.520
a constellation of acts and actors across places 
and scales and this is hard work. It is complex and  

35:09.520 --> 35:15.120
challenging so we need to continually investigate 
and expose and understand what we also need to  

35:15.120 --> 35:22.640
critically reflect uh unlearn to relearn so that 
we're then able to imagine in more capacious ways  

35:22.640 --> 35:28.560
because if we cannot in re-imagine uh 
conferring pathways forward that are different  

35:28.560 --> 35:34.640
we're not going to create those visions um and 
change uh thinking and doing so that we don't  

35:34.640 --> 35:41.120
seek those universalist solutions or one truths or 
eurocentric formulas that have gotten us into this  

35:41.120 --> 35:46.400
mess in the first place. So we need to think about 
both context but also histories and geographies of  

35:46.400 --> 35:53.760
difference and similarities so the concrete sorry 
the concrete differences need to be recognized and  

35:53.760 --> 35:59.280
tackled systemically or else restorative 
measures will ultimately fail collapsing  

35:59.280 --> 36:05.120
under the weight of their own inequality. So 
when we think about doing better and doing more  

36:05.120 --> 36:09.760
we need to continually take stock of the 
various collectivities for equitable and  

36:09.760 --> 36:16.000
transformative practices because this is the only 
way we're going to move forward for much more just  

36:16.720 --> 36:22.160
futures and much more sustainable 
and flourishing lives going forward.  

36:23.280 --> 36:28.000
Thank you all for listening and if you'd like 
to learn more about the research article that  

36:28.000 --> 36:33.680
this talk draws from um it is on my website 
it is called critical climate justice so feel  

36:33.680 --> 36:39.840
free to visit it or download it. I'm at farhannasultana.com. uh so thank you again for listening.

36:44.080 --> 36:51.920
Excellent! thank you so much Dr. Sultana um 
let's see okay so we've got uh we've got  

36:51.920 --> 36:55.840
four questions including the last one's 
mine but if we don't have time for mine  

36:55.840 --> 37:01.520
that's fine so first uh let me read them 
in order so Wafa Al-Daily, Dr. Wafa Al-Daily  

37:01.520 --> 37:09.040
asked can you please explain how has climate 
justice concept been applied in conflict-prone  

37:09.040 --> 37:15.600
fragile states and conflict and war zones? How 
has it been enforced and reinforced to protect  

37:15.600 --> 37:21.840
the most vulnerable groups, including 
women, children and minority groups?

37:23.760 --> 37:30.320
um all right okay so a lot of areas that 
are conflict-prone or have um histories of  

37:30.320 --> 37:36.640
violence and warfare uh they're often sites 
of extractivism. Right so whether it's fossil  

37:36.640 --> 37:43.120
fuels, uh rare earth minerals, uh water or land 
grabs, we've seen a lot of different ways that  

37:43.120 --> 37:48.480
people have been marginalized and displaced and 
there have been different types of resource grabs  

37:48.480 --> 37:54.960
uh that have been occurring. So there's an 
undergirding um a connection between in my opinion  

37:54.960 --> 38:00.640
between the different types of conflicts we're 
seeing that are tied to the very resources that um  

38:00.640 --> 38:06.480
most of us as human society or species rely 
on and and I think we need to understand those  

38:06.480 --> 38:11.280
connections once we start to see those connections 
we can start to see that yes there's warfare here  

38:11.280 --> 38:16.160
and there's great suffering and great loss and 
death and destruction but what are the key drivers  

38:16.160 --> 38:21.840
uh to this? And then I think we can start to have 
these once we start to see these conversations we  

38:21.840 --> 38:26.160
can move the conversation between X-people 
don't get along with Y-people right and  

38:26.160 --> 38:30.960
that tends to be about identity politics devoid 
of that material connection so when we started  

38:30.960 --> 38:37.200
the wider political ecology of warfare we can 
start to see the different ways that um you know  

38:37.200 --> 38:43.440
extractivism and capitalist extractivism has been 
linked to uh to these places to these people who  

38:43.440 --> 38:47.840
are the actors involved but in terms of plan if 
the question if I understood it correctly was it  

38:47.840 --> 38:53.440
about climate justice movement specifically 
if there are movements in places of warfare  

38:53.440 --> 39:00.320
you I'm not entirely sure understood the question 
um because in times of war often times  

39:00.320 --> 39:05.040
various activist movements are suspended right 
because it ends up being about life and death.  

39:05.040 --> 39:11.280
I'm not entirely sure if climate justice movements 
are always active in places of active warfare  

39:11.280 --> 39:16.080
but they are often active in places of conflict 
right conflict is not necessarily warfare  

39:16.080 --> 39:21.200
but I don't know to what extent that was 
the question of unless I misunderstood.  

39:21.200 --> 39:27.840
Well so why don't you unmute yourself 
and clarify if uh if you can please?

39:30.240 --> 39:37.200
Yeah sure what I meant is like usually when 
conflict zones and war zones there is no  

39:38.080 --> 39:44.240
presentation for minorities, women, children 
they're not protected and we're talking about  

39:44.240 --> 39:54.080
um environment justice usually they are the most 
affected by any kind of inequalities. Let's say  

39:54.880 --> 40:01.920
because of the war because of the um 
climate changes in their in their areas so  

40:01.920 --> 40:11.120
this concept is in conflict its own areas 
and how this being reinforced to protect this  

40:11.120 --> 40:16.480
type of groups in in these areas? Usually 
the as you said the state is not there  

40:18.080 --> 40:23.920
conflict is exist, international communities are 
contributing to trying to solve the problems or  

40:23.920 --> 40:31.280
bring peace to to the area and we're talking about 
the climate justice and the injustice in in this  

40:31.280 --> 40:39.280
area so this is something uh I am wondering. Do we 
care can we apply this concept and conflicts of  

40:39.280 --> 40:49.200
zone areas if yes to which extent we can enforce 
uh and reinforce the concept of climate justice?  

40:49.840 --> 40:57.360
How we can protect these vulnerable communities 
in war zones? I hope that just explain my question.  

40:58.080 --> 41:03.440
Okay yes I think I understood a little 
bit better now thank you for that um so yes I  

41:03.440 --> 41:08.880
think one of the things that uh that comes up 
is that you're right in terms of as I was saying  

41:08.880 --> 41:14.000
in times of war or active conflict, you do have 
a suspension of other things that are happening  

41:14.000 --> 41:19.120
and the same groups that have um are suffering 
from climate breakdown are often the same groups  

41:19.120 --> 41:24.640
that are suffering during warfare. It is women 
and children, the elderly, disabled and so on  

41:24.640 --> 41:30.480
um and then also in terms of whose lands 
are uh destroyed right or you know whether  

41:30.480 --> 41:36.880
it's warfare in terms of bombs or in terms of 
capture for bases so there are different ways that  

41:36.880 --> 41:41.600
people are being marginalized and excluded so I 
think the concepts that are derived from climate  

41:41.600 --> 41:46.000
justice in terms of at least the justice aspect 
or at least from the feminist aspect. Yes we can  

41:46.000 --> 41:53.440
use that lens to look at instances of places 
of war in terms of protection in terms of  

41:54.000 --> 42:00.640
figuring out what are the ways we can 
help give support or reparations or direct  

42:00.640 --> 42:06.640
solidarity and aid to groups that have been 
um particularly harmed in sites of conflict  

42:06.640 --> 42:11.440
often times what happens is during active 
conflict or military engagement people are so  

42:11.440 --> 42:17.840
confirmed um concerned with violence with active 
violence that a lot of things get invisibilized  

42:17.840 --> 42:23.600
we know that rape of women is a very common tactic 
during warfare, it has been for a very very long  

42:23.600 --> 42:28.400
time so again so then you see you and HCR get 
involved you see other international communities  

42:28.400 --> 42:33.760
or humanitarian or refugee aid get involved 
because you do need those active and the times of  

42:33.760 --> 42:39.360
warfare I don't think people are actively thinking 
about climate in the instances of direct violence  

42:39.360 --> 42:44.960
um or or destruction but what we can do is try to 
see what is the the background to this those who  

42:44.960 --> 42:49.840
are not in an active conflict zone are able to see 
make those connections and make those critiques  

42:49.840 --> 42:54.560
but you can't necessarily use a critique to stop 
warfare right? That requires much more intentional  

42:54.560 --> 43:01.360
effort whether it's counter uh forms of uh you 
know resistance movements whether it's financial  

43:01.360 --> 43:06.640
cut off what we're seeing currently in Europe 
right now uh they're meant to warfare tactics  

43:06.640 --> 43:12.480
don't always apply to peacetime tactics right but 
at the same time we can still use different ways  

43:12.480 --> 43:17.840
to look at the way people are vulnerabilized 
and made disposal because we're seeing for  

43:17.840 --> 43:23.920
instance, sacrifice zones that are created through 
extractive mining that is contributing to climate  

43:23.920 --> 43:31.760
injustices but we can also see how warfare creates 
sacrifice zones of outright large groups of deaths  

43:31.760 --> 43:36.880
and destruction right it's much more ramped up 
whereas climate change is much more slow or fair  

43:36.880 --> 43:43.200
when if you're talking about actual political 
strife and in terms of violent physical violence  

43:43.200 --> 43:48.800
during those times you can similarly use those 
ideas of well what does it look like to protect  

43:48.800 --> 43:54.320
minority groups what does it look like to pay 
attention to to gender issues to protecting  

43:54.320 --> 43:58.800
children from harm and I don't think that I 
have a better answer for that. If I did I'd  

43:58.800 --> 44:03.760
probably be doing some peace council work. 
Thank you so much for that response Doctor Farhana Sultana.   

44:05.520 --> 44:12.160
Okay so next question is from Rebecca Giannotti 
and she says thank you Dr. Sultana. Could you please  

44:12.160 --> 44:19.040
speak about considerations of the historic 
gaps and issues in feminism i.e primarily  

44:19.040 --> 44:25.040
the prominence of white feminism, its lack of 
inclusivity particularly with regard to race  

44:25.680 --> 44:31.280
as well as exclusion of transgender women?
How those issues might impact climate justice  

44:31.280 --> 44:36.800
or likewise how a climate justice approach 
might help build a more inclusive feminism?  

44:38.000 --> 44:43.920
Awesome thank you for that question uh so this is 
what I was trying to do with my work in terms of  

44:43.920 --> 44:52.960
thinking about um how do we bypass those or rather 
confront those issues of what you identified or  

44:52.960 --> 44:57.520
what is known as imperial feminism some people 
call it white feminism in terms of the way it's  

44:57.520 --> 45:05.200
been historically very exclusionary to issues 
of race issues of disability, issues of sexuality,  

45:05.200 --> 45:10.960
uh and also issues of colonialism. uh we know 
very well from a lot of different transnational  

45:10.960 --> 45:15.360
and women of color and third world feminist 
scholarship that there have been historically  

45:15.360 --> 45:21.840
very problematic imperial and colonial forces that 
had a lot of feminist so-called feminists involved  

45:21.840 --> 45:29.040
right and those forms of historical evidence give 
us the tools with which to think about how do we  

45:29.040 --> 45:35.280
think about climate justice or feminist climate 
justice that doesn't recreate that? So my uh  

45:35.280 --> 45:40.080
positionality in coming from a much more 
post-colonial and transnational feminist  

45:40.080 --> 45:47.840
uh training is to immediately not center that 
historical imperial feminist but to discard it  

45:47.840 --> 45:53.600
but and to start from a position where uh 
we start to have these conversations around  

45:53.600 --> 45:58.400
intersectionality which comes from black feminist 
thought right? In terms of thinking about how do we  

45:58.400 --> 46:03.840
center not just gender because that has all that 
has been used as a form of colonial and imperial  

46:03.840 --> 46:11.040
force but to center the intersectional way gender 
is always already undergirded by race and class.  

46:11.040 --> 46:16.000
uh you know if you think back to works of like 
Audrey Lord or Angela Davis and so on um or you  

46:16.000 --> 46:23.280
know post-colonial scholars uh like uh um Chandra 
Mohanty uh or even Sylvia Federici's work in terms  

46:23.280 --> 46:29.920
of how do we think about class? So if we take that 
position that it's all it's already internalized  

46:29.920 --> 46:37.120
in terms of not just gender as centrality but that 
intersectional way of and interlocking oppressions  

46:37.120 --> 46:42.240
we start to therefore think about climate justice 
or what I've argued in the paper is that it comes  

46:42.240 --> 46:51.920
from that position of taking the much more 
nuanced uh feminist scholarship that includes  

46:51.920 --> 46:58.400
insights from critical race theory, anti-colonial, 
anti-capitalist frameworks and then to build  

46:58.400 --> 47:04.880
from that and so and my goal is that if we start 
to have these conversations about climate justice  

47:05.440 --> 47:11.840
not centering problematic just let's say marxism 
which is just about class or imperial feminism  

47:11.840 --> 47:16.640
which is just about gender but have much more 
complex conversations that center the majority  

47:16.640 --> 47:21.920
world or speaking from the global south we start 
to sh you know shift the framework so instead of  

47:21.920 --> 47:26.400
speaking from the margins the margins become the 
center as you know Bell Hooks talked about when  

47:26.400 --> 47:30.320
you speak from a position of marginality it is 
also speaking from a position of strength because  

47:30.320 --> 47:36.160
you see the entirety of the problem and if we 
take that as the center we are able to speak to you  

47:36.160 --> 47:42.080
know back truth to power um and my hope is that 
in kind of fostering these conversations about  

47:42.080 --> 47:48.560
a critical feminist climate justice is to start 
from that premise not to make excuses that this  

47:48.560 --> 47:52.320
is what I'm doing that's different but to start 
from a position of strength this is what I'm doing,  

47:52.320 --> 47:56.880
these are the theoretical insights that inform it. 
I do not need to speak to the gaps that existed  

47:56.880 --> 48:02.800
before because they weren't helpful at all. I'm 
speaking from what we know now and we will improve  

48:02.800 --> 48:09.120
as we learn more that is the goal right is that 
unlearning and relearning over time. um so I hope  

48:09.120 --> 48:16.960
that addresses your question in terms of starting 
from the positions of um thinking about things  

48:16.960 --> 48:22.240
like transgender rights, thinking about you know 
disability rights thinking about uh what does  

48:22.240 --> 48:27.600
it mean to talk about indigeneity in Africa so 
that it isn't again always planet America right?  

48:27.600 --> 48:33.840
So we need to have these conversations about 
imperialism that America perpetuates globally.  

48:34.640 --> 48:40.320
Thank you, Dr. Sultana. um now Daniel I hope you I don't 
pronounce your last name wrong but Daniel Morchain  

48:41.040 --> 48:48.880
asked do you think that say, 
a climate adaptation initiative that addresses  

48:48.880 --> 48:54.880
questions of climate gender justice in 
its design undertakes gender responsive  

48:54.880 --> 49:01.120
vulnerability assessments and identifies metrics 
on climate justice and gender in its monitoring  

49:01.120 --> 49:07.360
and evaluation system? So do you think this is 
in principle a good and solid way to ensure  

49:07.360 --> 49:13.280
that climate adaptation is gender responsive 
and addressing justice issues? what is missing?  

49:15.120 --> 49:20.320
Oh wow okay that was a complex question hopefully 
back in the chat so that it's so that it's uh new  

49:20.320 --> 49:24.640
there and you can see all the words. um okay yeah 
I haven't been following along with chat because  

49:24.640 --> 49:31.600
there's a lot going on in the chat box yeah um all 
right so if I understood it uh from what you said  

49:31.600 --> 49:35.280
instead of trying to going and finding and 
reading it and keeping everyone on hold I'll  

49:35.280 --> 49:39.600
start from there and if I miss something please 
please correct me if I'm wrong. So yes so there's  

49:39.600 --> 49:45.440
been a lot of uh recent initiatives that have 
looked at the ways that we can think about climate  

49:45.440 --> 49:52.720
adaptation that is more gender just or in terms of 
its design in terms of thinking about uh climate  

49:52.720 --> 49:58.560
uh focus in terms of uh not just thinking about 
climate change and its impacts on communities  

49:58.560 --> 50:05.520
but in terms of thinking about um how can 
we uh make that or redesign it in terms of  

50:06.160 --> 50:12.880
you know much more gender-centric so if we think 
about it that way we can start to have these  

50:12.880 --> 50:17.600
conversations about okay what does a gender 
responsive vulnerability assessment look like?  

50:17.600 --> 50:22.720
What are the different matrices what do we miss 
when we phrase a question this way versus that way  

50:23.920 --> 50:28.240
and in principle? Yes so I think the question was 
in principle is this good yes in principle that  

50:28.240 --> 50:34.560
is good. um but again as we know from let's say 
critiques of uh gender and development or  

50:34.560 --> 50:39.360
women in development from the 70s, then gender 
and development in the 90s and so on in terms  

50:39.360 --> 50:43.200
of thinking about uh what are the different 
insights we've gained from that so I think it's  

50:43.200 --> 50:47.840
really important to look at uh feminist critiques 
of development and then think about one of the  

50:47.840 --> 50:52.800
feminist critiques of climate adaptation so one of 
the pieces I wrote many years ago was looking at  

50:52.800 --> 50:58.240
what are the ways uh if you know feminist insights 
can be brought into climate adaptation discussions?  

50:58.240 --> 51:04.240
um and then looking at the ways uh really that 
um there isn't one perfect solution for every  

51:04.240 --> 51:08.880
location and even in one location you might have 
something that works from one side and it needs  

51:08.880 --> 51:14.160
to be tweaked to another but you can have similar 
types of toolkits. So if you want to have a toolkit  

51:14.160 --> 51:19.360
that is doing xyz, you need to be able to critique 
and reflect back on what are the shortcomings of  

51:19.360 --> 51:24.400
that and acknowledge it and write it down like 
literally have some record keeping because  

51:24.400 --> 51:29.120
invisibilizing the problem doesn't make the 
problem go away. So one of the things that we did  

51:29.120 --> 51:34.800
learn from let's say community-based participatory 
development or CBNRM, community-based natural  

51:34.800 --> 51:40.560
resource management that was wild in the 1990s 
and 2000s is that there were really problematic  

51:40.560 --> 51:44.880
ways that people were romancing the local 
people, are romancing the community as the site  

51:44.880 --> 51:49.920
of all solutions and panaceas and we know that 
communities are quite patriarchal and there are  

51:49.920 --> 51:55.040
patronally patron-client relationships and there 
can be vertical hierarchies of power structures.  

51:55.040 --> 51:59.440
So once we started the critique of community 
and participation that came in the wake of  

51:59.440 --> 52:05.520
those projects really gave pause to international 
development organizations and NGOs in terms of we  

52:05.520 --> 52:10.720
can't use participation as a tyrannical tick 
box system, we can't go out and say yes we had  

52:10.720 --> 52:15.520
30 women well with the women were all silent and 
the men did all the talking did you really have  

52:15.520 --> 52:20.160
30 women present? So these are critiques that 
have been had in the last 20 years so how do  

52:20.160 --> 52:26.400
we learn from that to think about MnE systems, uh 
for climate adaptation or locally-led adaptation  

52:26.400 --> 52:31.280
that is more gender just and that is more climate 
just? So once you're aware of the critique you can  

52:31.280 --> 52:37.200
try to improve the project under your control but 
if you're not aware at all you're not going to be  

52:37.200 --> 52:43.920
able to be responsive um and have that agility to 
have better planning and better intervention but  

52:43.920 --> 52:48.640
I think one of the important thing is to at least 
recognize that yes we need to be able to do this  

52:48.640 --> 52:54.640
and then how can we have a much more flexible 
uh design or flexible policy implementation,  

52:54.640 --> 53:01.280
funding allocation, monitoring and evaluation 
assessment uh all of these tools that are often  

53:01.280 --> 53:07.360
used in various uh development and climate project 
planning and uh project intervention. We need to be  

53:07.360 --> 53:11.920
able to have that recognition that we need to 
go back to different forms of academic critique  

53:11.920 --> 53:17.280
because it is a job of the academic to critique. It 
is our prerogative, if we don't do the critique we  

53:17.280 --> 53:24.000
will never know what the shortcomings of various 
types of interventions and policies and plans were.  

53:24.000 --> 53:28.800
So therefore there needs to be that two-way system 
of praxis, there needs to be practice in these  

53:28.800 --> 53:33.760
projects so that you are able to therefore 
tweak it and improve it as you go forward.

53:38.000 --> 53:43.280
I wish I could offer you a glass of water there. 
Perfect I'm sorry we're bombarding you. I do  

53:43.280 --> 53:48.960
want to ask you my question um and I'm going to 
put it in and it is in your article you refer to  

53:48.960 --> 53:55.600
the fetishization of resilience narratives and you 
use the term um people's ability to adapt cope and  

53:55.600 --> 54:01.200
renew so my question is why is it important that I 
put it in why is why are resilience narratives an  

54:01.200 --> 54:06.400
obstacle to addressing climate change as opposed 
to focusing on people's ability to adapt cope and  

54:06.400 --> 54:10.240
renew? Because there's a lot of literature on 
resilience and climate change and I have read  

54:10.240 --> 54:16.080
some of the feminist critiques of that term. yeah 
um so a lot of folks uh I've been writing about  

54:16.080 --> 54:20.720
resilience over the last five or six years 
in terms of the problematic way, it's been  

54:20.720 --> 54:26.160
kind of taken up across different institutions 
so if folks are familiar with it that this will  

54:26.160 --> 54:30.720
you know you already know the debates those who 
are not very familiar with it uh you know it  

54:30.720 --> 54:35.280
resilience is a term that has uh been used quite a 
lot over the last couple of decades it's also come  

54:35.280 --> 54:39.600
under a lot of critique in terms of the way that 
it's invoked but then what does it really mean  

54:39.600 --> 54:45.040
people aren't really clear but at the same time 
it's this expectation that you've been suffering  

54:45.040 --> 54:51.520
from these injustices but you we expect you to 
be resilient so you know places where I come from  

54:51.520 --> 54:56.400
we're tired of being resilient for like hundreds 
of years you know of colonial brutalities and then  

54:56.400 --> 55:01.600
developmentalism and then you know state-centric 
uh development with NGOs and so on, and all the  

55:01.600 --> 55:06.720
different forms of patriarchy and power structures 
that exist. um it's not to say that you know we  

55:06.720 --> 55:11.680
haven't been resilient and we need to be resilient 
now uh yes people have been resilient but at the  

55:11.680 --> 55:17.920
same time it often uh abdicates people like you 
know you should be resilient um good on you for  

55:17.920 --> 55:22.960
being resilient so that's some of the wider like 
the broad range critique in terms of thinking  

55:22.960 --> 55:29.280
about if I understood the question in terms of 
uh resilience uh narratives as opposed to what  

55:29.280 --> 55:36.320
I said was that you know people's ability to adapt 
cope and renew so some of the resilience narratives  

55:36.320 --> 55:41.920
also uses those terms but we're not entirely sure 
what they mean by that um what I want to do again  

55:41.920 --> 55:48.400
is start from the margins right? Start from what 
makes people able to cut to cope or to adapt or  

55:48.400 --> 55:54.320
to renew or to feel like they have well-being how 
can we define well-being away from this obsession  

55:54.320 --> 56:00.000
with economic growth at the same time how do we 
enable economic growth for those who have been  

56:00.000 --> 56:05.440
made so impoverished over time? So it's a 
balancing act right? so it's about thinking about  

56:05.440 --> 56:11.600
what are the ways that some feminist insights help 
us think about uh not just getting into the latest  

56:11.600 --> 56:17.440
buzzword like resilience but recognize that yes 
resilience as a word in the vernacular does have  

56:17.440 --> 56:23.040
a role in society but what are the ways perhaps 
let's say resilience projects are being rolled out  

56:23.040 --> 56:27.440
and whose name are the role being rolled that 
what kind of financial uh commitments are being  

56:27.440 --> 56:32.640
made who are the actors involved what are the um 
sort of the matrices by which they're measuring  

56:32.640 --> 56:38.800
success um who are the people involved, who are 
the target population or the beneficiaries to say?  

56:38.800 --> 56:45.280
So one of the ways I think um I'd like to see 
the conversations move forward is to think about  

56:45.280 --> 56:50.320
you know climate justice gives us a set of tools 
with which to critique but it also gives us a set  

56:50.320 --> 56:57.200
of tools to think about um you know the need 
to reimagine differently and it also centers  

56:57.200 --> 57:02.640
indigenous knowledge globally in terms of those 
kinds of reparative relationships about care  

57:02.640 --> 57:09.280
networks, about reciprocity, what helps people have 
a sense of well-being or renew their livelihood or  

57:09.280 --> 57:15.920
feel like they have well-being for their children 
outside of however a resilience narrative may be  

57:15.920 --> 57:21.680
defined by outsiders. How do people understand 
it themselves while at the same time recognizing  

57:21.680 --> 57:26.400
there's a lot of indoctrination that happens with 
western education in terms of the way indigenous  

57:26.400 --> 57:32.880
knowledge um and even schooling across the global 
south have been kind of homogenized to be a very  

57:32.880 --> 57:37.920
westernized eurocentric form of education so 
these are the kinds of conversations you need to  

57:37.920 --> 57:43.840
have so it's a constant balancing act of offering 
something talking about something but with caveats  

57:43.840 --> 57:49.120
and it can be frustrating trust me I live 
this life all the time so but at the same time  

57:49.120 --> 57:53.760
recognize that if you don't have caveats you don't 
know what your own limitations are and what needs  

57:53.760 --> 57:59.120
reflection and it and needs that continual 
intellectual and emotional labor investments  

57:59.120 --> 58:04.320
and I think that is what I would like people to do in terms of at all points along  

58:04.320 --> 58:08.480
the decision making hierarchy all the way from 
the top to all the way to people who are doing  

58:08.480 --> 58:13.040
implementation what are the ways that that's 
both flexible and agile but also critically  

58:13.040 --> 58:19.760
reflexive and willing to learn over time and 
and to learn uh to center different voices instead  

58:19.760 --> 58:26.960
of people who are coming up with resilience um you 
know discourses and designs. Thank you and it is 2:30  

58:26.960 --> 58:31.840
and I did I want to repeat that we're going 
to stay on a few minutes uh I want to thank you.  

58:31.840 --> 58:38.160
I think that was a great wrap-up actually um but 
I want to just say one thing so thank you all for  

58:38.160 --> 58:42.640
attending thank you so much Dr. Sultana for speaking 
with us. We shared a short survey we're going to  

58:42.640 --> 58:47.200
send it out also, it's really important for us in 
order to get funding to bring great speakers so  

58:47.200 --> 58:52.960
it'll take one minute, two minutes of your time to 
do it. I want to say our next speaker is uh also  

58:52.960 --> 58:58.000
from Bangladesh, Afrina Choudhury with Worldfish 
Bangladesh. She'll be speaking on experiences and  

58:58.000 --> 59:02.800
merging gender transformative approaches with 
development efforts and aquatic food systems  

59:02.800 --> 59:10.400
in Bangladesh. That's April 14th and so again we 
might stay 10-15 minutes and uh I will put Claudia's  

59:12.240 --> 59:16.160
question into the chat again so you 
can see it so just want to let people  

59:16.160 --> 59:20.160
leave who had planned to spend an hour with us 
but thank you Doctor Sultana to agree to stay with us

59:20.160 --> 59:24.880
just a few more minutes. Well thank you, everyone 
for coming, uh thank you for joining us, thank you  

59:24.880 --> 59:30.480
for the excellent questions um you know I hope 
this was an informative talk and I'm always happy  

59:30.480 --> 59:35.840
to be in contact. You have my website, my email is 
over there and please do feel free to read through  

59:35.840 --> 59:40.480
my publications in case they're helpful but also 
on my website, you'll find videos of my talks,  

59:40.480 --> 59:51.920
podcasts, op-eds and so on. So thank you again. Right 
so let's see is Claudia still here?

59:55.040 --> 59:59.840
Do I see Claudia? Yes she's still here okay 
Claudia and uh I hope I'm pronouncing your  

59:59.840 --> 01:00:04.880
name right. She has a more general question 
beyond climate change but something that I think  

01:00:04.880 --> 01:00:09.520
you could also address and she asked 
for social justice dedicated to women  

01:00:10.400 --> 01:00:14.160
I would like to ask how much 
work is done in mental health  

01:00:14.160 --> 01:00:19.200
since one of the qualities of women is to be more 
sensitive in this regard and the most vulnerable.

01:00:21.680 --> 01:00:22.400
Buenos dias. (Speaking in spanish)

01:00:25.280 --> 01:00:27.840
(Speaking in spanish)

01:00:54.880 --> 01:00:55.840
(Speaking in spanish)

01:00:58.560 --> 01:01:04.320
So just a quick translation basically since 
women are the most vulnerable and are suffering  

01:01:05.120 --> 01:01:11.040
disproportionately in things like flooding and 
so on then what are the what is being done in  

01:01:11.040 --> 01:01:15.120
the area of mental health to address 
women's needs in this area? Thank you  

01:01:16.480 --> 01:01:20.320
okay all right thank you um 
so I don't do my work doesn't  

01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:25.760
specifically focus on mental health, I've seen 
a few publications on mental health in terms of  

01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:32.320
climate change impacts but I always make this 
joke the unbearable whiteness of climate anxiety  

01:01:32.320 --> 01:01:37.280
it seems like mental health research has been 
largely done amongst white populations in the US,  

01:01:37.280 --> 01:01:43.280
Canada and Europe. uh so when we talk about uh 
people who are facing the disproportionate impacts  

01:01:43.280 --> 01:01:48.640
of climate change across the global south or 
black indigenous, and people of color communities  

01:01:48.640 --> 01:01:53.280
I haven't found a whole lot of research that 
does a systematic study of that you see a  

01:01:53.280 --> 01:01:59.920
lot of anecdotal evidence but then you don't see 
the amount of conversation taking up media pages  

01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:05.840
uh or mental health specialist attention in the 
US the way you see amongst the dominant population  

01:02:05.840 --> 01:02:10.720
and it's absolutely okay to have climate anxiety 
and eco grief that no one's invalidating that.  

01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:16.640
What I'm saying is the discussion has 
been really crowded like uh kind of uh crowded  

01:02:16.640 --> 01:02:22.400
in terms of centering certain people over others. I 
don't know about the gender-disaggregated data of  

01:02:22.400 --> 01:02:27.280
that but when we think about who's been paying 
the costs the longest so if you talk about two  

01:02:27.280 --> 01:02:32.160
indigenous women let's say indigenous women in 
Canada, there's some really well-known indigenous  

01:02:32.160 --> 01:02:36.160
female activists in both Canada and the US.
They talk about what they've been doing, how  

01:02:36.160 --> 01:02:41.120
they've been resisting and fighting uh they don't 
necessarily talk about their mental well-being  

01:02:41.120 --> 01:02:46.480
right? They're talking about active strategies 
of resistance and survival if you'd look at  

01:02:46.480 --> 01:02:51.280
communities in the global south or you talk to 
women's movements who've been involved in various  

01:02:51.280 --> 01:02:55.840
climate or environmental justice related 
movements a lot of the conversation again  

01:02:55.840 --> 01:03:02.480
is about strategies about care networks, about 
collectivities, about solidarities and actions.  

01:03:02.480 --> 01:03:08.080
um but I haven't seen a whole lot of publications 
doing that systematic study of mental health um  

01:03:08.080 --> 01:03:13.600
so it would be absolutely important to do this I 
think and then to have resources available at hand  

01:03:13.600 --> 01:03:17.440
because the forms of suffering I was talking about 
isn't just material suffering in terms of like  

01:03:17.440 --> 01:03:22.400
water, housing, food, livelihood, it is absolutely 
about emotional and mental health as well  

01:03:22.400 --> 01:03:26.640
but we don't see a whole lot of allocation of 
budgetary resources for that right? We see things  

01:03:26.640 --> 01:03:32.720
that are much more material or practical that are 
visible to people but once you think about like  

01:03:32.720 --> 01:03:37.760
a livelihood flourishing or centering well-being, 
you do start to see that you are beginning to  

01:03:37.760 --> 01:03:42.880
address mental health and well-being in terms 
of if people have access to what is known as  

01:03:42.880 --> 01:03:48.240
Buen Vivir right? the good life then people 
are likely to have more mental resilience  

01:03:48.880 --> 01:03:54.880
and feel they're more connected to their kin 
to their other people but then also to be able  

01:03:54.880 --> 01:03:59.600
to provide for their families into the future. So I 
think that there's absolutely a connection between  

01:03:59.600 --> 01:04:04.560
material well-being and mental health well-being. I 
mean I think those are the kinds of ways um those  

01:04:04.560 --> 01:04:10.240
are the issues that do need more funding and 
research and also more attention in terms of  

01:04:10.240 --> 01:04:14.160
when we think about climate and colonialism 
who has it harmed the most and yet who are  

01:04:14.160 --> 01:04:19.280
we not hearing from the most when we talk about 
climate anxiety, climate grief or climate suffering.

01:04:21.760 --> 01:04:27.360
Thank you, thank you for addressing that 
that question as well so um I would like to  

01:04:28.080 --> 01:04:32.880
give a moment for if there's any other questions 
otherwise I would like to let Dr. Sultana take a  

01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:39.200
break, she came to a straight from a class that 
she was teaching in her university and um uh  

01:04:39.200 --> 01:04:47.680
so do we have any take one minute, two minute, two 
seconds otherwise I'd like to just have a virtual  

01:04:47.680 --> 01:04:54.240
round of applause for Dr. Sultana and thank you so 
much. I'm so glad you could join us. Thank you,  

01:04:56.080 --> 01:05:00.480
thank you again for inviting me, thank you again so 
much for inviting me I really appreciate this and  

01:05:00.480 --> 01:05:08.160
to everyone who's still hanging on uh thank you 
for being here um and for the excellent questions.  

01:05:08.160 --> 01:05:21.840
All right we'll let you go. Take care, 
thank you, everyone! Bye, everyone! Thank you!